Today we are looking at the life of Rehoboam. We first hear his name in 2 Chronicles 9:31, which says, “Solomon rested with his ancestors and was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam became king in his place.” But as we will see, God’s plan was that Rehoboam would not rule over all of Israel.
It’s important to remember that now, after Solomon’s death, as part of God’s judgement on Solomon, the kingdom of Israel will be divided. God is moving all the chess pieces, so to speak, to break apart the kingdom. A man named Jeroboam, who was one of Solomon’s officers, had rebelled against Solomon and so God had sent a prophet to him to tell him that he would become ruler over ten of the twelve tribes. You can read more about that in 1 Kings 11. So, even though 2 Chronicles 10:1 says, “Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king,” it is not going to happen like that. After they meet together, 10 of the tribes decide not to follow Rehoboam.
The reason they met in Shechem, according to the Benson Commentary, is because it was a central location for all the tribes. They all meet there, and it’s important to note Jeroboam goes there, too.
I don’t know if Rehoboam understood this or not, but, as I mentioned, his being crowned king was not a done deal. The reason I think he might not understand this is because of what he does. He receives advice from the elder counselors, and instead of listening to their advice to go easier on the people than his father Solomon did, he rejects their advice and listens instead to his peers. He acts arrogantly. He threatens the elders. And so they reject him. 2 Chronicles 10:16-17 says, “When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered the king: What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Israel, each to your tent; David, look after your own house now! So all Israel went to their tents. But as for the Israelites living in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.”
All but two of the tribes left and went home. Just Judah and Benjamin stayed with Rehoboam. Jeroboam becomes king of the other ten. Now the kingdom was divided into two: a northern kingdom with ten tribes and a southern kingdom with two. At first, Rehoboam planned to assemble an army and attack the northern kingdom and reunite it, but the Lord sent a prophet to tell him not to do that, and Rehoboam listened to the prophet and did not attack. He instead fortified Jerusalem. And as 2 Chronicles 11:13-17 tells us, “The priests and Levites from all their regions throughout Israel took their stand with Rehoboam, for the Levites left their pasturelands and their possessions and went to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons refused to let them serve as priests of the Lord. Jeroboam appointed his own priests for the high places, the goat-demons, and the golden calves he had made. Those from every tribe of Israel who had determined in their hearts to seek the Lord their God followed the Levites to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their ancestors. So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported Rehoboam son of Solomon for three years, because they walked in the ways of David and Solomon for three years.”
Everything was going as well as it could. It sounds rather ideal. All the people who wanted to follow God gathered together in the southern kingdom. That means everything will turn out perfectly, right? Well, did you catch the foreshadowing? It was wonderful for three years. Let’s turn the page to the next chapter.
2 Chronicles 12:1 says, “When Rehoboam had established his sovereignty and royal power, he abandoned the law of the Lord—he and all Israel with him.” Are you as disappointed as I am? Why didn’t he just follow God’s law? Everything was going so good. There was peace. They had plenty. The people who wanted to follow God had all gathered together. What happened? The text doesn’t tell us any details, other than they “abandoned the law of the Lord- he all Israel with him.” They rejected God’s Word. They chose sin instead of obedience. So the Lord allowed Shishak, the king of Egypt, to capture Judah and advance as far as Jerusalem.
2 Chronicles 12:5-8 tells us what happened. The Lord sent the prophet Shemaiah to him. “He said to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: You have abandoned me; therefore, I have abandoned you to Shishak.’ So the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, ‘The Lord is righteous.’
When the Lord saw that they had humbled themselves, the Lord’s message came to Shemaiah: ‘They have humbled themselves; I will not destroy them but will grant them a little deliverance. My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak. However, they will become his servants so that they may recognize the difference between serving me and serving the kingdoms of other lands.’”
Then, as verse 9 tells us, King Shishak took everything. All the gold, the treasuries, even the golden shields that Solomon had made. Verse 12 tells us, “When Rehoboam humbled himself, the Lord’s anger turned away from him, and he did not destroy him completely. Besides that, conditions were good in Judah.”
God used Shishak to teach the people a lesson. Rehoboam repented, and God showed mercy to him. The kingdom was not destroyed, as verse 13 says, “King Rehoboam established his royal power in Jerusalem. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name. Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.”
All’s well that ends well, right? Well, it all should have ended well. Conditions were good. They learned their lesson. What more could go wrong? Here we come to the verse I’ve been waiting to talk about. The key to all of Rehoboam’s, and honestly, all of Solomon’s problems. 2 Chronicles 12:14 says, “Rehoboam did what was evil, because he did not determine in his heart to seek the Lord.”
Why, after all that he had witnessed in his life, do you think he was not determined in his heart to seek the Lord? Well, for starters, did you catch who his mother was? Back in verse 13, it said, “Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.” That probably seems like an odd aside to have mentioned. But I think it’s mentioned with significant reason. The Ammonites were a deeply sinful people. They were the people who worshiped Molech. As 1 Kings 11:7 (ESV) says, “Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.”
Do you think her influence on him had any bearing on his lack of determination to seek the Lord? I don’t see how it couldn’t. But regardless of whether it was his mother’s bad influence or not, Rehoboam did not determine in his heart to seek the Lord.
Have you determined in your heart to seek the Lord? Before you answer that question, let’s look at what that means. I think, if we are determined in our hearts to seek the Lord, then we will seek God’s will for us above anything else. It means that we want to please God more than we want to please other people; that we are seeking His favor and His approval above all. It means that we look to God for direction. We seek to follow His ways instead of the ways of the world or even the way we personally prefer. It means that we have determined in our hearts to make God number one in our lives.
So, now, I ask you again: have you determined in your heart to seek the Lord? Only you can answer that question. I think if you are honest you might say, “well, sometimes yes, and sometimes no.” For sometimes we don’t seek the Lord, we just do what we want to do, wouldn’t you agree? I think it’s when we don’t seek Him, though, that we end up in trouble. It’s exactly those moments which lead to us compromising. This is how we end up committing sin. When something happens and we are angry and hurt, instead of pausing to seek the Lord, we say something we shouldn’t have said. If we have big decisions to make, and we don’t seek the Lord and instead listen to advice from the world or ungodly people, we might end up making decisions that aren’t according to His will. Even if godly people have good intentions, we must be cautious if they are not speaking for the Lord. The fact of the matter is, if we are looking to anybody but God, we can be led astray. We must be determined in our heart to seek the Lord in all things, or we may find ourselves doing what is evil, just like Rehoboam.
We see examples of this all throughout the Bible. People follow God for a time, and then they decide to follow their own ideas, and they drift away. Look at the life of King Asa. For a long time, he depended on the Lord, then he went his own way. He was the grandson of Rehoboam, and he did so much good. He renovated the temple altar and destroyed all the false idols after the prophet Azariah spoke to him from the Lord and said, “Asa and all Judah and Benjamin, hear me. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you” (2 Chronicles 15:2). And as 2 Chronicles 15:17 says, “The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholeheartedly devoted his entire life.”
Well, he was wholeheartedly devoted to God his entire life, until he wasn’t. Let’s read what happens in 2 Chronicles 16:7-13, which says, “At that time, the seer Hanani came to King Asa of Judah and said to him, ‘Because you depended on the king of Aram and have not depended on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from you. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a vast army with many chariots and horsemen? When you depended on the Lord, he handed them over to you. For the eyes of the Lord roam throughout the earth to show himself strong for those who are wholeheartedly devoted to him. You have been foolish in this matter. Therefore, you will have wars from now on.’ Asa was enraged with the seer and put him in prison because of his anger over this. And Asa mistreated some of the people at that time. Note that the events of Asa’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a disease in his feet, and his disease became increasingly severe. Yet even in his disease he didn’t seek the Lord but only the physicians. Asa rested with his ancestors; he died in the forty-first year of his reign.”
Every time I read this part of Scripture, verse 12 jumps out at me. Let’s read it again. It says, “Asa developed a disease in his feet, and his disease became increasingly severe. Yet even in his disease he didn’t seek the Lord but only the physicians.” Every time I read it, I have the same thought: we need to seek the Lord first, before we seek any other help.
This applies to all things in our lives, not just disease, by the way. But, for sure, we must seek the Lord first whenever we are sick. Does that mean we should never visit a doctor? No, but we should seek the Lord first. Let me give some examples of what this might look like. If you have a headache, do you pray for the Lord to take it away or do you turn immediately to pain medication? If you come down with the flu, do you pray for healing or do you immediately make an appointment at the doctor’s office? If you have emotional issues, do you seek the Lord’s council from His Word, or do you make an appointment at a therapist's office?
As I mentioned, this applies to all things in our lives. If you have a problem at work, do you seek council from other people, or do you stop and bring the matter to the Lord in prayer, and ask Him for His help? If there is trouble in your family, do you seek the Lord’s will? In all things, we should seek the Lord. Note, in the verse, it says, “he didn’t seek the Lord but only the physicians.” That means that it’s possible that sometimes the Lord will want us to also seek the physicians or outside help. The problem was Asa only sought the physicians.
Too many times, we don’t stop to seek the Lord’s council. It’s easy to just keep going about our day, focused on what is happening in the moment, but the Lord doesn’t want us to live that way. He doesn’t want us to compartmentalize our faith. He wants to be integral to all that we do.
A lot of Christians, though, don’t think that way. They compartmentalize their faith. They might pray about the really big issues they face, but I don’t think they bring everything to the Lord in prayer. They are content to make the majority of decisions they make all day long without giving any thought to what the Lord might have them do. I think the reason they do this is because they haven’t actually determined in their heart to seek the Lord. The result of this is that they end up making decisions that do not line up with the will of God.
An example of how off the mark we can become is seen in the life of the Apostle Paul. Acts 26:9-11 records Paul’s testimony to King Agrippa. He says, “In fact, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I actually did this in Jerusalem, and I locked up many of the saints in prison, since I had received authority for that from the chief priests. When they were put to death, I was in agreement against them. In all the synagogues I often punished them and tried to make them blaspheme. Since I was terribly enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.”
The key verse to note in this text is verse 9. He said, “In fact, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Paul had convinced himself that his actions were necessary. He thought he was following God. He was zealous in his Jewish faith. He thought he had God on his side. He obviously wasn’t being led by the Lord. He says, “I myself was convinced.” I think that is what happens to people, doesn’t it? We, all by ourselves, become convinced that something is necessary to do, but the thing we think is necessary is in opposition to the name of Jesus. That’s because, again, if we are looking to anybody but God, we can be led astray.
It’s so easy to become convinced that something is necessary, even when it goes against what the Bible says. The following questions are going to offend some people, I know, but they must be asked. How many Christians have gotten a divorce because they convinced themselves that it was necessary, even though it goes against what the Bible clearly says about divorce? Or how many Christians have used unethical means to conceive children because they convinced themselves it was necessary? Or taken pharmaceuticals that were created from fetal cells? Or cheated on their taxes or stolen goods or whatever else you can think of that people regularly do, all because they are convinced that it is necessary?
This is why, if we want to follow the Lord, we must seek Him first before we convince ourself to do something that is in opposition to the name of Jesus. We must be determined in our hearts to seek the Lord in all things.
If King Rehoboam had simply continued to seek the Lord, how much better would his life have been? When you read these kings’ stories in the Bible, don’t you just want to yell at them? Don’t you want to tell them to just follow God!? We can clearly see how it will only end badly for them when they don’t.
So if we can see this in other people's lives, why is it so hard to put into practice in our own? Why don’t we trust the Lord in all things? I think it boils down to something that I’ve said before. Many times before. If we truly believed that God is for us, then we could more easily follow Him. But when we doubt that His way is the best way, then we take matters into our own hands.
The worst part about Rehoboam’s sin is that it caused all the people whom he ruled over to sin, too. Have you noticed that the people follow their king? As we read through the Old Testament, we see the people going along with their leadership. When Hezekiah follows the Lord, the people follow Him, too. Then when his son Manasa becomes king, and he does not follow the Lord, the people turn away, too. Most people are easily led by good leadership or by evil leadership. Throughout all of history, the only thing that seems consistent is that most people are easily manipulated. But if we are determined to seek the Lord, then we will not be so easily led astray.
You might have noticed this too, but I really like how King Asa is described. It says that even though, “The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholeheartedly devoted his entire life.” Was that a misprint? For King Asa lapsed in his dependance of the Lord. I think that sentence means that the Lord is kind and merciful. King Asa clearly wanted to follow God. He was wholeheartedly devoted to God, yet even he failed to seek Him in everything, and he suffered the consequences of doing that. Yet, God saw his heart and so described him in that favorable way. That description gives me peace and hope. For none of us can follow God perfectly. Yet, “the eyes of the Lord roam throughout the earth to show Himself strong for those who are wholeheartedly devoted to Him.” God’s eyes still roam the world, and He still shows Himself strong for those of us who are determined in our hearts to seek Him in all things.
Jesus says this, too, in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” If we seek Jesus first, He will provide for us. He has given us the greatest gift of salvation through faith and forgiveness from our sin. And now we who have been redeemed by His death and resurrection, we are empowered by the power of the Holy Spirit to live wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. We are called to submit our lives to His Lordship and follow Him by obeying His Word. And we can rejoice and give Him thanks that when we fail to do this perfectly, He is faithful to forgive us. But let us not use that as a license to do what we want. For our ways will lead us astray, but God’s ways are always for our best. Let us trust Him and determine in our hearts to seek Him in all things. For if we do this, then He will be faithful to provide for us, just as He said.
Pray: Heavenly Father, we confess that we have not always sought Your way in all things. Please forgive us and help us to be determined in our hearts to seek You. Help us so we may be wholeheartedly devoted to You. Help us not to be deceived by the world or by our own hearts. Please mold our hearts so we are fully committed to following You. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
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